Flashback: Michelle Obama on the ‘Luxury’ of Being a Stay at Home Mom

The other day President Obama remarked that their family didn’t have the “luxury” of Michelle being a stay at home mother when their girls were young. Maybe he should have spoken to her first, she may have told him something else. At least she had a different view on the matter in 2007. I guess being First Lady is less “boring” than the life of the average American mom.

Every year, Michelle Obama considers quitting her job and staying home full-time to take care of her children. “It was a gift having my mother home every day. I want my kids to feel that way,” she says. But having experienced the pleasures of work outside the home, she is reluctant to give up her independence. “Work is rewarding,” she says. “I love losing myself in a set of problems that have nothing to do with my husband and children. Once you’ve tasted that, it’s hard to walk away.” …

Then, too, there is that little-discussed fact that staying home with children can be—how else to put it?—less than intellectually stimulating. “The days I stay home with my kids without going out, I start to get ill,” she says. “My head starts to ache.” When she mentioned it to her mother, Marian Robinson told her daughter she didn’t think Michelle could handle the boredom of staying home with kids. Obama was surprised to hear that taking care of her had been boring, but now she embraces the idea of discussing it openly.

Look, there are days when kids drive even the most perfect, loving mothers a bit insane. Nobody can deny that. But for someone with a six figure income to classify the choice of staying at home to raise her children as a “luxury” is disingenuous at best.

Being home with your children is considered a “luxury” when you live beyond your means and are forced to work outside the home to pay for it.
If status and material things are more important to you than your children YOU are the problem.
You CAN”T stay home from work once you’ve spent yourself into slavery.
Can’t they think this kind of thing through?
Spend less, owe less, work less.
Viola! You have your life back.

If Mrs. Obama was pulling down about twice what Mr Obama was, why didn’t Mr. Obama quit his day job, to take care of his children full time? Even a mere man can sometimes manage a housshold of four a mere three hundred thousand dollar salary.

All too often politicians, named Clinton or Obama, only use their children as props. I don’t not envy such children.